If you’ve ever tried to cut the cable TV cord, then you know how difficult an experience it can be. Your cable company has customer retention specialists trained to do whatever it takes to keep you as a customer. Usually, this just means offering leaving customers better prices to entice them to stay. Usually.
Last week, AOL executive Ryan Block and his wife Veronica Belmont called up Comcast to close their account and switch to another cable provider. Their customer service rep would have none of it, however. After 10 minutes of unsuccessfully trying to end service via the worst customer service agent in the world, Belmont handed the phone over to Block, who had the foresight to start recording the conversation.
In the incredible 8-minute recording above, Block constantly asks the agent to end his service. Each time, the agent refuses, demanding to know why the couple was no longer “interested in the fastest Internet in the country.” Listening to the whole thing, it’s hard to decide what’s more shocking: that the agent was so relentless, or that Block was able to keep his cool during the entire runaround.
For its part, Comcast apologized for its insanely passive aggressive representative in a statement.
"We are very embarrassed by the way our employee spoke with Mr. Block and are contacting him to personally apologize. The way in which our representative communicated with him is unacceptable and not consistent with how we train our customer service representatives. We are investigating this situation and will take quick action. While the overwhelming majority of our employees work very hard to do the right thing every day, we are using this very unfortunate experience to reinforce how important it is to always treat our customers with the utmost respect."
UPDATE 7/17/14: July 18th is the last day to comment on the FCC's net neutrality proposal, which allows ISPs to create "fast lanes" for those content providers willing to pay. The claim is that ISPs won't disadvantage other content providers that don't pay. We don't believe it. Click HERE to learn more about how the proposal will let ISPs impact your Internet experience and what you can do about it
[Male customer service agent via Shutterstock]
Comcast customer service
From sheri on July 17, 2014 :: 11:39 am
This is similar to the experience I had with Sirius XM radio when I attempted to cancel service…very high pressure and very annoying.
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